The dollar will lose its status as the world’s reserve currency & the greatest wealth transfer in history is already underway - warns the founder of one of India’s fastest-growing unicorns!

In this episode, Deepak Garg, founder of Rivigo and AnywhereJobs shares why Rivigo's iconic Relay model succeeded, and what ultimately limited it.

He predicts Zomato's dominance, questions funding choices of startups and shares why India may miss the AI revolution without a radical energy shift.

From Bitcoin vs. gold and Trump’s potential Nobel Peace Prize to Tesla becoming a $30 trillion company, Deepak’s predictions are bold and grounded in years of pattern recognition.

If you're a founder, investor, or macro nerd, this is an episode you won’t forget.

0:00- Rivigo & Anywhere Jobs

02:16 – When your business outgrows the market

04:18 – Capital raising is a Double-edged sword

05:02 – Which ideas truly need funding?

07:33 – Build teams with Accuracy, not Kindness

09:39 – How to know if you've chosen the right market?

10:41 – Why Zomato is India's best Consumer tech bet

16:00 – How the Power is shifting b/w nations today?

20:18 – Will Dollar cease to be a Reserve currency?

22:36 – Is Bitcoin better than Gold?

26:59 – Who will be the Next global Superpower?

31:56 – India in the Next 20 years

34:22 – When 2 players control 80% of India’s Private sector

35:52 – Why China is far ahead of India in Nuclear Energy?

40:17 – Will Trump win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2025?

42:01 – How Tesla could become a $30 trillion company?

47:15 – Wealth transfer from Wall Street to Main Street

50:30 – Where India should focus in AI

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​​India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.

This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.

What is Neon Fund?

We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.

Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.

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Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

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Venture capital is much fancied today.

Is this job which looks like cutting cheques for products and founders you like, for everyone?

As for any work, there are traits you should have and some which won’t help you on the job.

We have with us Kushal Bhagia (All In Capital), Karthik Prabhakar (Peer Capital), and Rajan (Upekkha).

Three people who interestingly all began as engineers and took different career paths to today become Fund managers of leading VC firms.

All In Capital’s $24M pre-seed fund backing early-stage founders,

Peer Capital’s $75M early-stage fund investing in tech-first Indian startups from seed to Series A,

Upekkha's $40M Capital’s accelerator-style fund supporting B2B SaaS startups.

Tune in!

01:53 – Why builders shouldn’t become VCs?

03:12 – Why best VCs sell well & stay curious

05:12 – How the VC job is like Flying a plane

07:48 – How parental instincts enable VCs?

10:42 – Is fundraising harder than ever?

14:12 – What makes people write VC cheques?

18:03 – Where do India’s rich family offices invest?

20:30 – Why India still doesn’t have its own YC?

22:55 – The OG YC when startups weren’t cool

28:00 – Can YC’s numbers ever be replicated?

33:03 – David v/s Goliath of Small vs large funds

39:02 – Zepto’s first $50k cheque

40:22 – Sectors VCs won’t touch

41:35 – Story-driven v/s numbers-driven Fundraising

44:36 – How we missed Swiggy, Postman & Zepto?

46:18 – The best VCs

48:24 – What needs to change in Indian VC?

49:47 – Founders we’d invest In (But not work for)

51:25 – Unlearnings as an Investor

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​​India’s talent has built the world’s tech—now it’s time to lead it.

This mission goes beyond startups. It’s about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.

What is Neon Fund?

We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that’s done it before.

Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re doing it all at Neon.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

In this episode of The Neon Show, Vishwa (Co-founder of ZenDuty) is joined by Rahul Sasi (Co-founder of CloudSEK) and Ananda Krishna (Co-founder of Astra Security).

They share how AI feels magical now. And how as founders they are trying to sprinkle this magic everywhere from how building products to building teams and everything that matters.

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00:00 Highlights

00:41 Meet the New Hosts

01:08 Founders' Biggest Time Killer

05:10 Biggest Mistakes and Lessons

11:19 The Role of AI in the Future of Work

17:40 Senior Engineers and Code Reviews

19:13 Design Systems and AI Tools

19:43 Challenges in Product Management

20:35 Prompt Engineering

21:22 AI in Marketing and Content Creation

22:50 AI in Product Workflows

24:14 Adoption of AI Tools in Teams

26:59 AI in Support Systems

32:18 Future of AI in Enterprise

37:47 Conclusion

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Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

In this episode, we sit down with two exceptional founders. One who is going after the biggest category, and one who created a new category and became its leading player.

Vijay Rayapati (Co-founder, Atomicwork) and Khadim Batti (Co-founder, Whatfix) share their hard-earned insights on what it truly takes to build a great company.

From closing million-dollar deals remotely to building AI-native organisations and cultivating long-term leadership, this conversation goes deep into the real playbook behind enduring companies.

Watch if you’re a founder, a team builder, or simply someone who wants to understand how great companies are actually built.

0:00 – Trailer

01:37 – The Viral Meme Story

03:28 – What the Founders Admire About Each Other

07:20 – Navigating US–India Work Timings

08:39 – Hiring & Retaining Talent

15:54 – Why Founders Need Mentors

24:53 – When Employees Think Short-Term

31:48 – Building Organic Leadership

35:58 – Hunger vs Humility

39:58 – Building Company Culture

44:55 – Why Abolish Designations

51:38 – What is Founder’s Mentality?

54:44 – Large vs New Categories

01:00:44 – When Things Go Wrong

01:02:41 – Handling Board Pressure

01:06:45 – Never Compromise on Customer Service

01:13:58 – What to build is becoming harder

01:18:57 – FOMO in AI

01:25:10 – AI Will Remove Bureaucracy, Not Jobs

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Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

CRM is a category often equated with its market leader, Salesforce.

Hence, companies and investors question the viability of building a business in this space.

Nilesh Patel, founder of Leadsquared, who built a Unicorn in CRM, joins us today.

We discuss the category, the business, and its competitors.

With Byju’s as their first large deal, Edtech brought over 40% of their customers.

Then the industry went through a downfall, but Leadsquared survived by a well timed expansion.

From lack of capital restricting entry into the US market, to fast-forward today, where they have gone global.

Nilesh shares his thoughts on the skills founders need and the decisions they have to make -on exits, acquisitions, and hiring.

Tune in for more!

0:00-Trailer

1:35 – Building Leadsquared

3:19 – First large deal with Byjus

7:12 – Fundraising from Private Equity

9:58 – CRM as an Undesirable Investment

12:10 – Should Co’s enter the CRM Space?

13:35 – How to price SAAS in India?

15:23 – Diversifying beyond EdTech

16:49 – How to build market differentiation?

20:29 – Highest annual deal of <$10M

23:37 – India spends $500M-$1B on CRM

26:39 – Are Indian founders underpricing?

28:40 – GTM in the US Market

33:26 – What would Leadsquared do differently?

47:32 – When Should a Founder Exit?

49:03 – How AI Will Transform CRM

55:09 – Views on Byju Raveendran

56:55 – When founders think like VC’s

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Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

Meet Sharad Sanghi who built India’s first data center, he spent 25 years building Netmagic, India’s largest data center company. He came to India in 1995, worked at VSNL as the country was discovering the internet, and built a company focused on internet for businesses.

Now he is building Neysa, an AI cloud startup, which recently raised $50M to help businesses adopt AI, all from India.

With Neysa businesses can use AI without writing a lot of code or use five different tools to run it. And do everything—train models, test them, deploy them, and monitor them—in one single dashboard.

Sharad has a lot of perspective to share—as someone who was at the forefront while India adopted the internet, and now, the AI wave.

If you're building in AI, part of an enterprise exploring AI, or simply thinking about where India is in the AI race—this episode is for you.

0:00 – Trailer

02:00 – How Neysa makes AI easy & cheap?

04:37 – From datacentre to AI

06:54 – 1200 GPUs & 15 Clients

07:24 – Selling internet to Businesses

12:03 – Why India Needs Local AI Clouds

13:20 – How Neysa Plans to Stand Out

15:14 – Is Scaling a Hyperscaler Easy?

19:26 – Can India Shift from IT to AI?

26:40 – AI in Large Enterprises vs Mid-Market

27:51 – AI Revolution vs Cloud in 2006

31:06 – What’s the Moat for AI Startups?

33:08 – Is Private Data the Real AI Goldmine?

35:59 – Why Product & GTM Matter Early On

38:06 – Why Scaling must come before Demand

42:12 – OpenAI’s edge on Deepseek?

44:52 – How should enterprises navigate AI?

46:32 – Did Only NVIDIA Predict the AI Boom?

48:17 – Founder 1.0 V/S 2.0

-------------

Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

In this episode of The Neon Show, we bring you into the room with someone who’s spent over a decade backing India’s most ambitious companies.

We're joined by Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel. With over 14 years in venture capital, Prayank walks us through his journey of discovering and building expertise in specific sectors—from cybersecurity and developer tools to SaaS and marketplaces—and how VCs identify the categories they truly understand.

We dive into how Accel chooses best founders, and the balance between backing founder versus business across stages. Prayank shares his candid thoughts on why India has been slow and late to the AI race, and what a realistic way forward could look like for Indian startups.

He also offers a glimpse into Accel’s evolving investment thesis around AI, sector by sector, and talks about how the enterprise landscape is changing—and what that means for Indian founders building in this space.

Tune in!

0:00- Trailer

1:45 – Finding Great Founders

6:30 – What We'd Do Differently

10:16 – Sector Expertise Matters

13:15 – Where AI Money Should Go

18:00 – Accel’s GenAI Bets

21:18 – Sector-Wise Thesis in AI

23:24 – Growth means Product in AI

26:45 – Rise of Founder-Influencers

29:10 – $650million India Fund

31:35 – Beyond Roti, Kapda, Makaan

34:07 – Why Accel is Big on Content

36:03 – 15 Years in VC

38:16 – Highs & Lows of VC Ecosystem

43:36 – Knowledge Compounds in VC

49:45 – Conviction over Consensus

51:06 - Conclusion

-------------

Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text

Is it time for investors to move beyond the valley when analyzing India?

Dev Khare, Partner at Lightspeed agrees.

He shares with us an interesting view on two funding models:

The Silicon valley model begins with raising millions of dollars & going through huge negative cashflow for years. Hopefully building a great product or maybe even creating a new market. And a few years later, comes out with super fast growth & revenue potential of millions & billions of dollars.

Whereas, in the Compounder model companies raise little to no funding in early days. They don’t go to negative cash flow, instead growing slowly. Not at 3x ,but at 50% and keep at it for some 10 years building a large company. Thus becoming profitable in a few years following a slow J curve, and raising rounds only to accelerate growth.

India has built exceptional companies in the software industry following this model.

But, we can all sense that lack of approval for India’s enterprise products, which we can confidently say has been achieved in the consumer markets.

With 13+ years at Lightspeed, Dev has backed companies like PhysicsWallah, Razorpay, PocketFM, ShareChat, Darwinbox, Portkey.ai, Qure.ai, and Accel Data.

Prior to VC, Dev started as a product manager then founded his company Covigo, a developer platform for mobile applications.

This episode promises an interesting discussion on building companies in enterprise.

0:00- Trailer

1:12 - Early days at Lightspeed India

8:11 - Learning curve of an Investor

11:52 - How OYO fixed supply when Airbnb didn’t

16:37 - Is organic acquisition now the norm?

19:02 - India must rediscover its AI edge

20:20 - Compounder v/s silicon valley companies

23:26 - Why Freshworks & Zoho chose mature markets?

27:40 - Can India create SAAS category leaders?

29:18 - Enterprise startups cap at 30%

33:07 - How a $3.2B company found its niche

37:42 - AI services & AI led services

40:37 - Lightspeed’s Investment thesis

45:34 - Why we have 70% second-time founders?

48:18 - Will ITC & Jio acquisitions set a trend?

52:37 - Are software IPOs sparse?

55:34 - India’s enterprise buyer market is small

1:04:47 - Missed investments & Lessons

1:06:28 - Why is India having a lag effect in AI?

1:10:19 - Has India built global enterprise products?

-------------

Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

-------------

Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

-------------

This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

Send us a text